After reading the new ToyFare article on the Top 10 best Xmas Toys ever, it got me wondering - what was your favorite toy or gift you received during the holidays? I'm in the process of writing a blog about mine, should be up soon, but what is yours?

Well last year my mom and wife surprised me with the ST:TNG box set of all 7 seasons. I had been wanting it for ever but the price was too much and i waited. when i opened the box i was in shock, i cried it was one of the most amazing gifts i had gotten. ST: tng was a special thing i had shared with my aunt( mom's sister) and she had died almost 10 years ago and when she was sick we would watch it and my uncle said it help when she was really sick and he would put it on for her and it would help calm her a bit. she was so giving when alive it would have been something she would have gotten me if she was alive( she always went over board) and when i got it it just was like getting a present from her, it was so well i can't think of a word that would compare to the feeling i got...

I remember the best Christmas toys that I got was when I opened Rodimus Prime and Galvatron when I started getting into Transformers. I had seen the movie over the summer in theaters and had started to watch the series on TV and wanted to have some of those Transformers that I had seen to play with. I still have them today. I even remember where i was on the floor around the tree when I opened them. That was the start of a long love for Transformers spanning 20 years.

Well last year my mom and wife surprised me with the ST:TNG box set of all 7 seasons. I had been wanting it for ever but the price was too much and i waited. when i opened the box i was in shock, i cried it was one of the most amazing gifts i had gotten. ST: tng was a special thing i had shared with my aunt( mom's sister) and she had died almost 10 years ago and when she was sick we would watch it and my uncle said it help when she was really sick and he would put it on for her and it would help calm her a bit. she was so giving when alive it would have been something she would have gotten me if she was alive( she always went over board) and when i got it it just was like getting a present from her, it was so well i can't think of a word that would compare to the feeling i got...

I have to say that the Otter is not a holiday person, and I try to block them out or avoid them all together. I've spent a few xmases on trips by myself (much to the dismay of family) and the past 10 years I've only been home for Thanksgiving twice.

And don't get me started on birthdays!

So I don't really remember gifts either (although conversely, I'm big on giving gifts!). However, the one gift I've gotten that I really remember was totally a surprise, apros pos of nothing thing:

When I was 8 years old, my family moved back to Texas from being in Alabama for 2 years. I had just seen Star Wars before moving back and it blew my mind. I didn't have any toys from it at all, but I imagine I never stopped talking about it around the house.

School was going tough, since in 2 years all my friends had seemed to move on and I felt like an outsider, even though I had grown up with all the same people at school. So one day I came home from school and there on my bed were all 12 of the original Star Wars figures that my mom had been looking for until she had the whole set. She never hinted that she was doing this and it was beyond a surprise. Presents were usually only for birthdays and xmas, so this was way out of the ordinary for my family.

Sadly, that policy pretty much changed as I got older as from that day Star Wars took over my life. I did every odd job and chore imaginable to be able to get most of the figures (and a lot of the vehicles). I didn't stop getting them until POTF hit in high school (then I got too cool for toys ). This gift also pretty much led to my toy collecting later on (which was based on rebuying all my childhood SW toys), which led to creating RTM and other websites, which led to my career!

But I never forgot that first set. So much so that I've kept the packages all these years:

I think mine would have to be a BIG Batmobile pedal car. I have a picture f the thing at work. It was a kid sized Batmobile (from the 70s) It had a radio inside, a gool stearing wheel... and it was my own batmobile that I could ride around the neigborhood. It was from "Santa" that year, which at my house, meant that it arrived unwrapped under the tree (which is good because I don't know how you would wrap something that big).

I had a bad habbit of waking up early, like 3 am on Christmas Eve and going in and looking at my presents. When I saw this big beauty I sat in it, in the dark, for like a half hour before going back to bed. Then when it was time to wake up and come into the living room for the big reveal I acted so surprised so as no one would ever know that i had already seen it. I told my parents that story about 5 years ago. They still raz me about it.

When I was little, I was spoiled, completly and utterly. My dad only got one toy a year when he was little and that was at Christams, so when I was born he decided I would have every toy I cpuld ever want. I had full sets of He Man toys, Thundercats, Silverhawks, Super Powers, Transformers, wrestlers, and my dads favorite GI Joe.

Throughout the year I could buy any toy I wanted with my allowance except GI Joe toys, because I would get those on Christmas from my dad. It was like that for as long as I played with toys. He would buy them throughout the year and store them until Christmas Morning.

He built Hot Rods in this huge garage he built at our house, that had a paint room in it to paint the Hot Rods. Well after Thanksgiving he would put garbage bags over the window, so you couldn't see in and he would get to work building the GI Joe Vehicles.

So Christmas 85 I wake up and run down the hall because I hear my parents are up. My baby sister was still asleep but I could care less. I ran into the room and there it was The USS Flagg. My dad built it, had it on the floor across from the tree with two Skystrikers sitting on it, two Mauler tanks were also on the deck guarding agianst Cobra attacks. New Joes were all over the deck and in the command center. Also set up was that Battle Platform, with two Cobra Morays attacking it.

Finally under the tree was a few Armadillos, The Bridge Layer, an Awe Striker and that Silver Motorcycle. They were guarding the Ammo Dump, and all those little battle stations. Attacking were those Crimson HISS Tanks and that Crimson redeco Joe Tank from Sears.

I also got all those little vehicle that came out and a couple of Snow Cats. There also were Eels , Tele Vipers, Cobra Soilders and Crimson Guardsman everywhere. I Dad was big on army building.

I don't think I ever stopped to eat all day. I ran to my room got a bunch of other Joes and my other two Skystrikers and the Battle for the Flagg went on all day long. Rattlers and Skystrikers fought in the sky while the Flagg and that Submirne thing that came with Deep Six battled in the ocean to keep the Flagg. After a huge battle GI Joe won the fight but the Battle Station was destroyed, but the Flagg was saved. My dad sat in the den and watched me play all day.

The next year I got a Terror Dome. Well I ended up with three because my dad bought one, my grandmother bought one, and my god father bought one. My dad couldn't find it so everyone was looking and they all found one on the same day at diffrent stores. No one wanted to take it back so I got one on Christmas and the rest later. The year after that was The Space Shuttle Complex, and while I had fun with all that, none of it measured up to the Battle for the Flagg of Christmas 85!!!!

I had a bad habbit of waking up early, like 3 am on Christmas Eve and going in and looking at my presents. When I saw this big beauty I sat in it, in the dark, for like a half hour before going back to bed. Then when it was time to wake up and come into the living room for the big reveal I acted so surprised so as no one would ever know that i had already seen it. I told my parents that story about 5 years ago. They still raz me about it.

My folks would put all the presents under the tree as soon as they were bought and wrapped...except mine. So, while Dad was at work and Mom had gone to the grocery (usually a 2hr trip) I would find where my presents were stashed (usually my parents closet) and...armed with an X-acto blade and a roll of tape I would proceed to unwrap my presents, look at them, and re-wrap them.

One year my dad had bought me a couple games for our TRS-80 computer (um...yeah, this was awhile ago) and one evening when my folks went out I found them, loaded them on the computer and played them.

I was a stinker.

I still have a bad habit of guessing what my wife is getting/has gotten me. Drives her nuts.

Jeff

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